


Not Enough

by orphan_account



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alcohol, Cheating, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, drug mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22063312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ryan doesn't know what's wrong with him or why he can't be happy in his relationship. He's got a girl who he loves and loves him back. What more could he need?
Relationships: Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie
Kudos: 5





	Not Enough

Ryan doesn't smile that much at his girlfriend anymore. It's the same with laughter. The jokes he thought were hysterical at first are now just plain and dull. He looks at Julia, his girlfriend of a little over a year now, and forces himself to smile at her as she cackles at essentially the same jokes she's been cracking all year. Usually Ryan would laugh at Julia's sense of humor without thinking.He doesn't know why he suddenly has to force out a chuckle.

Julia has dyed pink hair and a pale and impeccably made-up face that glows and shimmers in the slightest of light. Whatever trend Julia's doing with her hair, Ryan isn't in with. He's never done much to his hair in terms of color, leaving it at its natural brown shade. But Ryan favors Julia's pink hair a little, although he doesn't dislike her natural brown. Julia, she has an almost intimidating look, with a face that looks like a smile never resides at, even though she has the warmest heart that could ever beat. Ryan would have to lie to say he didn't love Julia, but lately, he hasn't felt right.

Ryan tries to think about the love he and Julia had made the night before in hopes to fix the unfulfilled feeling that was sprouting in him like zits on a teenager. He ignores the guilty ache he starts to feel near his stomach when he realizes Julia's oblivion to the negative feelings that suddenly overwhelm his state of mind every now and again.

When Julia's laughter dies out, she leans onto Ryan's chest. He tries to steady and soften his breathing for her sake until suddenly he can't take the guilt.

"Hey, Julia," he says, throaty voice threatening to crack. He's well past puberty and acne, resulting in a flawless display of complexion, but nowhere near past the awkward, not-good-with-words-or-vocalizing stage in his life. Ryan thinks he'll never jump past it. "I think I'm going to go home a little early tonight."

Julia's expression displays confusion — lots of it — and a little shock. "It's only nine," she protests. "Are you sure? Are you feeling well?" She looks up at him past her white mascaraed eyelashes worriedly. Ryan has a feeling she has noticed his strange behavior by now but has put it aside. He isn't sure, but he hopes she won't ask about it. He hopes it'll pass soon.

Ryan nods. "I'm okay," he says. "Just sleepy."

Julia seems to deliberate for a moment, and then she picks herself off of the couch so Ryan can move. "Then you should sleep," she finally concurs, grabbing Ryan's hand to walk him out of her apartment. Before they reach the door, Ryan spins around for a quick goodbye. Julia pulls Ryan into a close embrace, letting him kiss the top of her head, and she mumbles a goodbye. "Maybe it is best we both get extra sleep," she laughs. "I have work in the morning anyway."

Ryan nods.

"Love you, baby," Julia confides. Ryan starts to lose himself in Julia's dreamy, twinkly, verdant green eyes. She has a dreamy smile on her face, and her hands are loose in Ryan's.

"I love you, too," Ryan says back, nervous. He hides it well.

As soon as he's on the other side of the door, and he knows he's in the clear, Ryan walks the opposite direction from his home.

Sam's is a late-night casual hangout spot that everyone between the ages of 18-21 are hanging out at nowadays. All the male dudes there right now are probably living the single life and trying to score a one-time coition with some easy babes or whatever. All of Ryan's friends are definitely there. Including Brendon. That guy is a serious pervert. They're colleagues and all, Brendon and Ryan, but Brendon is always giving eyes to Julia, and Ryan hates it. He hates him. But he's an adult, so he can suppress it.

Music blasts in every direction for miles at Sam's. Ryan is always surprised people don't file complaints every night seeing as there are houses much less than a block away. It's louder inside, too. Much louder. It takes Ryan by surprise every time he puts his hands on the door handle and feels the vibrations from the beat coming from inside, where strobe lights blast everyone's eyes in every direction. It's absolutely amazing that all the people in that place are perfectly sober. Usually. Usually the place is free of alcohol and all drugs, but there's sometimes someone who's had a bad day and really needs to smuggle in a few cases. Not that Ryan is complaining. He actually needs a buzz anyway.

Ryan checks the many coolers for something or other. Maybe a beer. Julia's not too fond of beer. She calls it a nasty abnormality, but Ryan is okay with the bitter taste. He indulges in a bottle every once in a while. As his hands slosh around in the cool, half-melted ice, a friend of his comes up behind him, patting him on the back.

"Whaddup, Ryan?" the friend yells.

Ryan stands straight, looking at his good friend. This is Pete, a good guy with good humor, good teeth, and trashy experience with girls. Ryan assumes that it's the high level of humor that makes him so funny in bed. It's only a theory, though. Ryan has never experienced bedtime with Pete. He wishes not to. Pete's a friend. He's only heard the bad-in-bed rumours from girls around the small, very close-knit town that they live in.

"Hey," Ryan breathes. "What's—"

"Where's Julia?" Pete shouts. Only Pete knows how to make a guy's ear hurt worse than blaring music. "Weren't you two just hanging out today?"

"Yeah. She has work in the morning," Ryan says.

"That never stopped her from grinding up against you on a thursday night," Pete replies.

Ryan is silent. He has no excuse as to why he left his girlfriend at her apartment, and he wasn't telling Pete that he wanted a very quick break from her. It was bound to be blown out of proportion. It's a little weird for a second, as Ryan holds the cold bottle in his hand and Pete looks at him impatiently, until someone calls out to Pete. Without words, he walks toward the high-pitched, female call, leaving Ryan with an anxious chill in his back. Pete's not a stupid guy. He's known Ryan since high school, so it's obvious Pete knows there's something off.

Sighing, Ryan takes his bottle of beer to the sliding glass doors that lead to the back patio. Sam's is set up like a house. A modern house with two bedrooms, two bathrooms upstairs and down, a spacey kitchen, and a pool in the back. Nobody's going to be at the pool anyway because it's quite breezy out, but it's still fun to admire. Ryan opens the doors, allowing the rigid air to pick at his skin. Through the thin fences, Ryan can see people walking briskly with their arms hugged up against theirselves. At nine o'clock on a Thursday, most people are leaving work and getting home to their families before they miss supper. It's lovely, but it hurts to think about. He wants to picture himself like that with Julia, hugging his chest as he stays on the phone with her, warming himself up with the sound of her voice. But he cant. He doesn't know why.

He looks at his reflection in the pool. Even the pool has strobe lights in it. Crazy. Whoever decided to buy Sam's and allow a bunch of young adults to rave in it is absolutely crazy. Ryan takes big sips of his beer with a smile. The strange people who bought this place certainly didn't make a mistake.

Suddenly Ryan hears the sliding door open and some footsteps approaching him, and then Brendon's reflection is visible in the pool next to Ryan's. "No Julia?" he asks.

It's funny how the first thing Brendon wonders about is Ryan's girlfriend who he coincidentally seems to eye up all the time. "She had to go to the store," Ryan lies, unwilling to give away his girlfriend's whereabouts to a creep.

Brendon hums to himself, a cocky sounding noise that Ryan despises. "How are things with her?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Ryan growls.

Brendon smiles. "I mean, yeah. I care a bit."

"A bit."

Brendon sighs. "We're friends, right?"

He has a heart, Ryan does. A conscience, compassion. He's human. Ryan isn't going to say no to someone who thinks they're friends. It'd be just plain mean. He sighs. "Yeah."

"So why not just explain to me about your relationship with her? It's obvious something's wrong. You're here alone, staring into your reflection like it just told you your mother died. Just tell me. Maybe I can help. As a friend helping a friend."

_Yeah_ , Ryan thinks, _Just so you can swoop under my nose and steal her from me._ He sighs. He doesn't know if it's the beer opening him up or what, but he says, "It's a little rocky."

"I know. Keep going."

"I love Julia," Ryan says. "She's the best. She's amazing. When I first saw her, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I don't know what happened to me, but suddenly I was blind of everything else in the room. When I talked to her, every single satirical phrase she spoke caused me to burst into hysterical laughter. And now when I talk to her, everything is dull. I don't get it."

"So she's not enough, huh?"

Ryan doesn't like the sound of that. He clenches his teeth so hard they hurt. Who was Brendon to tell him that his own relationship wasn't enough? Ryan had been saying it to himself lately, but that doesn't make it right at all. Still, Ryan sighs, letting out pure evidence that he's this much of a pushover. "Yeah," he says, scratching at the back of his head. His feet are getting awfully tired from all the standing, but he doesn't sit.

Suddenly, Brendon makes a loud, silly, muffled noise. "Gosh, it's chilly. How about we go somewhere more indoors?"

Ryan nods, allowing Brendon to walk off and lead him somewhere. They go back into the house and up the stairs, and Ryan realizes he somehow got in front of Brendon. Maybe one of them got discombobulated in the hopping crowd. Or maybe Ryan's buzz kept him from seeing Brendon kindly welcoming him up the stairs before him.

In the upstairs corridor, the footsteps are louder. Everything is louder at Sam's, Ryan remembers. There's a room on the left and one on the right. Out of just random preference, Ryan picks the one on the right. Brendon follows behind, and Ryan hears the click of the door as it locks behind the two of them. After placing his beer on a nearby dresser, he allows his body to drift to the bed and fall backwards on it, staring up at the ceiling.

"So where were we?" Brendon asks, sitting on the bed adjacent to Ryan's fatigued body.

"She's not enough," he choked out.

"Oh, right," Brendon says. He looks down at the ground for a moment of silence.

The guilt is eating away at Ryan from the inside. He wishes the fog in his mind would clear up. He wishes he could love Julia without the presence of doubt. But he can't.

"I could make up for that empty spot," Brendon suddenly says. A slight edge in his tone is present.

Ryan furrows his eyebrows, confused. "What?"

"I could make up for her wherever she's lacking," Brendon repeats. Ryan doesn't seem to get it. Brendon lays back, and suddenly Ryan realises their distance — or lack thereof — from each other.

"Hey, could you scoot over just a bit?" Ryan asks, getting a little hot from the lack of air.

"Just allow it to happen," Brendon says, voice suddenly going low and smoky. And then, without warning, Brendon props hisself above Ryan and doesn't hesitate to start kissing him right on his lips.

Surprisingly, Ryan laughs. He doesn't have any logical reason for it except that it just happened, and he turns his head. "What is this?" he says, quickly stopping his laughter. "I'm not in with this... gay... thing."

Brendon doesn't seem to take that into consideration, and he kisses Ryan wherever he can, which currently is the bottom of his jaw and around his neck. "Just let it happen," Brendon mutters against his skin.

_Okay_ , Ryan thinks, _Just let it happen_. Booze makes him such a pushover, as if he wasn't enough of one in the first place. He follows Brendon's words a little hesitantly, trying to ignore the thought of kissing someone who was after his girlfriend just a minute ago. "Wait," Ryan says. Brendon eases off. Ryan can't help but laugh again. How could he have forgotten? "What even is this? What's happening?"

Brendon frowns. "I thought you wanted this," he says.

"No, I— I'm just confused."

"Confused? About what?" Brendon inquires rhetorically. "Haven't I made it obvious that I've wanted you all this time? Every time you show up here?"

Ryan is utterly appalled. "Obvious?" he repeats. "Every time Julia and I come here it's like you can't help but eye-fuck her every chance you get. I don't know if she notices it, but—"

"No, you idiot," Brendon interrupts. "I wasn't looking at her. I have no interest in Julia." He pauses, staring at Ryan's scrunched up and confused face. "I was looking at you."

"Me?"

"Yeah."

Ryan stares down at the ground. All this time he had thought Brendon was trying to steal his girl from him, and it turns out he was looking at Ryan. He ignores the way Brendon starts to softly kiss his lips repeatedly, and then he pushes Ryan back down.

"Relax a little," Brendon demands in that low mumble from before. "Please."

Ryan decides to take his advice and relax his tensed muscles. _What's the harm in this?_ he thinks, producing a soft sigh from pleasure and from giving in to Brendon's seduction.

When Brendon's hands explore Ryan's body, he contemplates stopping them, but it's hard. Ryan can't seem to keep his mind focused. It's when Brendon's hands reach the hotspot in his pants that Ryan jumps back.

"Look," Ryan says, "you're cute and all —very cute — but I can't do this. It's not right, I can't think straight," he stutters.

Brendon doesn't seem too inconvenienced. His hair is slightly messy, but he holds a smirk to his face. "Give yourself time," he says, cocky. "Think about what you really want." And then he leaves the room without much else being said.

Ryan doesn't get it. He lingers in the room before collecting his empty bottle of beer and leaving Sam's, bracing the rigid cold. No copious amount of thinking could unravel the mystery of Ryan's current state. He sure was turned on, to say the least, but why? He has a girlfriend and has never expressed interest in exploring his options with boys. Eventually, as he passes Julia's house to get to his own home, Ryan decides that there was no reason to even be thinking about it anymore. He happened to have had one drink too many and couldn't control himself. It's obvious, and it's just. Ryan is going to leave it at that and forget it as his buzz subsides.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for my ex girlfriend a few years ago


End file.
